


The Other Kathryn

by Feredil



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/F, Warning: slight hints at torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 09:39:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17660327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feredil/pseuds/Feredil
Summary: In Jery Taylor’s ‘Mosaik’, Admiral Paris and Ensign Janeway are captured by the Cardassians, but escape. In this AU, only Janeway is captured, but she does not escape by herself.





	The Other Kathryn

The first time I saw her, she was so black and blue, a Bolian would have looked pale next to her. Her eyes reminded me of a sky where clouds are dense. When you’re staring into a mass of grey that stretches on and on like a desert. She was young back then, but the malnourishment made her look like an old woman with a child’s body. Her hands held on firmly to a tray, but she was trembling and the glasses on it produced a cacophony of clink and clatter.

I turned to one of my Cardassian escorts. 

“A human?”, I asked, lowering both my brows to make an appalled face the Cardassians would recognize.

“She is a prisoner.”

I knew him well enough to read his embarrassment.

“Then our negotiations are terminated.”

Oh, I was calling a bluff. I couldn’t afford to loose their interest, but I knew how important my cargo was. What I didn’t know was if the prisoner was important, too. 

I got the answer when they sent her to my quarters.

She kept to a wall, eying me suspiciously. Her clothes were too big for her: slacking black trousers and a strange linen top like a sack with holes.

“My name is Cahyla”, I said, trying not to frighten her.

”Kathryn”, she answered, in a husky voice. “What do you want?”

I guessed it was pure reflex that made her question me. She seemed too downtrodden for bravery.

“I will take you back to the Federation.”

Kathryn laughed throatily, and I didn’t think of her as meek any longer. Rather as raw or dangerous. But then she winced, and I was reminded of just how serious those injuries were.

“Why have they treated you so badly?”

“I am human.” She kept those vacant eyes fixed on me, and I didn’t dare ask another question.

~*~*~

When I had organized some food, she ate hastily, hungrily. After the first few bites, she ran for the door. I heard her retch outside.

She returned, looking worse than before.

“I should have known the food would be bad for you. Your stomach’s not used to it.” I reached for my bag and searched for the pills I kept there. Not the hallucinogenic ones, the ones that made you forget all pain.

“Here.” 

I tossed and she caught the packet midair. On the black market, these pills would have brought 15 credits. Each. 

I think I saw a glint of recognition in her eyes. She did not ask me how many to take.

We both knew it would knock her out instantly, so when she sat down on the carpet, I offered her the bed.

“There’s space enough for the two of us.”

“No”, she said.

“Why not?”

~*~*~

It was only much later – in a different world, a different life – that Kathryn answered that question for me. I remember, we were somewhere in Italy, a soft breeze billowing the curtains while the sun created an ever-chancing pattern on the warm stone-floor. I was holding her to my chest in the afterglow of our lovemaking, and I had just told her that I fell in love with her on first sight – which is a half-truth.

“I don’t remember our first day”, she replied sleepily.

“You preferred the floor to my bed.” It had hurt me, if only in retrospect.

“Oh, yes…”, she mumbled, and then she said nothing more.

Usually, I didn’t push her. This time I insisted.

Her answer, when it finally came, was vague and cold.  
“Do you think their women were less abusive?”

My stomach heaved. I had to get up and wash my face.

~*~*~

I would have kept Kathryn away from Earth had I foreseen Starfleet’s particular interest in her.

I’d thought she was just an unlucky devil. A passenger from a hijacked freighter that the Cardassians found interesting enough to play with. Considering how Starfleet looks after their own, I never imagined she was with them.

She wouldn’t talk of the horrors she lived through – she shielded me from all of that. She only told me of her family and there, mostly of her father, which was strange, because he seemed to have been absent all the time. Did her longing for the stars originate there? I fear she will be endlessly searching for the unreachable.

Those days in Italy, they were happy ones, at least for me. Kathryn, on the other hand, seemed restless. I let her be.

After nearly three months, she contacted someone. I don’t remember his name. I thought he was family, maybe even her father. Now I know it was someone from the ‘fleet. She behaved strangely the whole day after. When I asked why she hadn’t made contact before, she just shrugged.

~*~*~

“I’m sorry, Cahyla”, she said, when they came to take her away. “I could have shown you more gratitude.” 

We kissed one last time, before an elderly man put an arm around her shoulder and guided her to the shuttle. She did not look back.

~*~*~

I haven’t seen her since. I never bothered visiting her on Starfleet grounds; it would have made me feel like a petitioner. I’ve been collecting reports and broadcasts, and all the pictures I could get. Somehow, I never learned to let go.

Enduring Cardassian torture boosted her career like nothing else could have. Starfleet’s always been good at reconciliation, when it involves a cover-up. Sadly, I can’t even blackmail them to get something out of it as well. I can’t afford to make trouble. I guess I’m lucky they don’t consider me a threat. A woman with no family and hardly any friends is too easily eliminated. My connections protect my business, but they won’t support personal vendettas.

~*~*~

Kathryn’s official file is boring. A list of qualifications, a personal description, a few certificates with marginal comments. The one picture of her is extremely unflattering. The only thing that makes it attractive is her gaze – not the vacant one I got used to, but the lively, determined Kathryn-look she must have had before the Cardassian episode. Her eyes look blue there.

The unofficial file tells a different story. Getting access to it cost me a fortune, but it was worth it. 

This is Kathryn’s real life. Her highs and lows, practically every little detail. She hid nothing from them. The last picture shows her as a radiant middle aged woman, sitting in a captain’s chair. It is this image that I stare at the longest.

Oh, I have loved the miserable Kathryn, the vulnerable, beaten lover I bedded. I loved her even more after two months, when she had gained some weight. When she was smiling again in her strange, lopsided way that looked as if she kept half her smile to herself. I loved her firm hands and her determination. I loved her shamelessness and her vigor.

But this Kathryn is gone. I guess she buried her somewhere, wrapped in memories of me.

~*~*~

Lately, things are changing, and I’m no longer sure she has really forgotten me.

I haven’t been frisked for thirteen months – exactly the time she’s been promoted – and nobody showed up with a warrant either. Not that they’d ever found anything. They just did that to harass me.

I’ve always hated not being in the picture, so I considered finally paying her a visit. 

But I’m a coward. The woman is – and has always been, as I now realize – intimidating, even when she is clutching a tray with Cardassion refreshments. Now that she’s found a way back to her old self, how can I face her? My criminal life set again her Starfleet principles? There seems no place for me at all.

For now, I don’t have to worry about meeting her anyways. The Captain’s heading for the Badlands to chase a Marquis cruiser. Oh, I know that region of space, I’ve been hiding there myself from time to time. The idea that Starfleet constructs ships maneuverable enough to navigate it does not please me at all. Then again, I could not stand the idea of her in danger. 

~*~*~

She’s hardly gone, yet I ache for her return. We’ve both been away from Earth for longer than three months, so I’m used to her constant absence. It’s just that I finally came to the conclusion that I want her.

I’ve filled my bed, my head, my life with lovers and strangers – I was never alone. But I want her with me, I want her in my arms. And the Badlands are dangerous. I’m afraid of losing her forever.

I look again at the picture of the smiling Captain, and I finally have to admit that I still love her. When she returns, I will tell her at least that.


End file.
